Syria - rogue nation or peace maker

For the past 3 years the US administration has seen Syria as a rogue nation. Now it's argued that Syria, along with Iran, may hold the key to peace in Iraq. What kind of a nation is Syria and what role could it play in the Middle East?

Transcript

Annabelle Quince: Welcome to Rear Vision. I'm Annabelle Quince and this week, a history of Syria.

Newsreader: The United States accuses Iran and Syria of backing insurgents and fuelling sectarian violence in Iraq.

Newsreader: Iran has invited the Syrian and Iraqi Presidents to a weekend summit to discuss ways of quelling the escalating sectarian violence in Iraq.

Newsreader: The summit comes as the US is facing increasing pressure to talk to both Iran and Syria.

Annabelle Quince: Since Syria opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush Administration has seen it as a rogue state. That now seems to be changing, with people like British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former US Secretary of State, James Baker, arguing that Syria, along with Iran, may hold the key to peace in Iraq. But any attempt to bring Syria in from the cold is being complicated by its involvement in Lebanon.

Newsreader: Political leaders have appealed for calm following the assassination of the Lebanese Industry Minister, Pierre Jemail who was a prominent critic of Syrian influence in Lebanon.

Newsreader: The leader of the anti-Syrian majority in the Lebanese parliament, Saad Hariri, says Syria is intent on killing those in Lebanon who want freedom from Syrian interference.

Annabelle Quince: The emergence of the modern state of Syria occurred in 1946, but Greater Syria, a region much larger than Syria today had existed for centuries, as Najib Ghadbian, Associate Professor of Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies, at the University of Arkansas explains.

Najib Ghadbian: The notion of Greater Syria includes what's today Syria and Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine. Most of the history of Greater Syria and including contemporary Syria was under empires, starting with the Ottoman Empires which lasted a couple of centuries, and then before that the Abbasid, the Umayyads and that would take us to the beginning of the Islamic era. That's generally the concept of Greater Syria.

Annabelle Quince: At the dawn of the 20th century Greater Syria was under the control of the Ottoman Empire. During World War 1, the British approached the Arabs, seeking their support against the Ottomans and their allies, the Germans.

Najib Ghadbian: The British Empire actually contacted an influential person in 1916, and they enlisted his help against the Ottoman Empire. They contacted him because he represented a religious authority at the time, and so they wanted him to challenge the Islamic legitimacy of the Ottoman Empire. The deal was that if Sharif Hussein of Mecca in 1916 were to join the allied effort against the Ottoman Empire, and the axis power, that he would be proclaimed King of Arabia, that's a region which would include the Western Hijab region and most of larger Greater Syria.

Newsreader: It was Paris in the spring, and there was hope in the air. The eyes of the world were focused on the Palace of Versailles. The business at hand was the Treaty to end World War I. They decided it must never happen again. The United States, said President Wilson, would aid in the establishment of just democracy throughout the world.

Annabelle Quince: Unbeknown to the Arabs, the British and the French had signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916, which divided Greater Syria between them. At the Versailles Conference this agreement came into effect and Britain gained a mandate over Jordan and Palestine, and the French over Lebanon and Syria. To the Arabs this was the ultimate betrayal.

Najib Ghadbian: They felt cheated by the Imperial powers, Britain and France. They took part in the war against the Ottoman Empire, they defeated the Ottoman Empire and towards the end of the military campaign, the son of Sharif Hussein came to Syria, to Damascus, and he was received as a hero by the notables in Damascus, and was proclaimed as the King of Greater Syria. But that was in contradiction of the agreement with the French, so France already then landed in Beirut, sent an ultimatum for Prince Feisal to abdicate the throne and accept the French mandate, something he actually accepted, but there was a group of Syrians headed by the Minister of War at the time, it was not called the Defence Minister, who met the French at the border of Lebanon and Syria and there was a symbolic battle there, known as Maysalun in which actually people put up a fight against the French invading army. But they were overwhelmed and Syria came formally under French mandate, starting in 1920.

Annabelle Quince: The French divided their mandate into two separate states, Syria and Lebanon. Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst and author of several books on modern Syria.

Sami Moubayed:Now Syria and Lebanon were grouped together because they are geographically close, because Syria and Lebanon were still considered one entity. On the contrary, the real divisions that were imposed on these countries were made by the French in 1920. Many districts of Syria, including Tripoli, including Beirut were annexed to greater Lebanon. So the divisions in the mentality of the Lebanese and the Syrians themselves, did not start until 1920. They did not grow strong until the '40s. Even in the '40s, you had people in Tripoli who would refused to consider themselves Lebanese, who were insisting on their Syrian identity. Basically this explains why so many people remained loyal to the Syrians, and even until now there's a strong mentality that Lebanon was carved out of Syria, not by the local people but by foreign powers.

Annabelle Quince: What impact did the French mandate have on the political and social life of Syria?

Sami Moubayed:Well in terms of impact, many people would disagree on how, what's the legacy of the French. I tend to look at the positive side on some of the things that they left behind. They stayed in Syria for 25 years, 26 years, not everything they did was bad, let's be very frank about it. They left behind a good judicial system, an independent judicial system, they left behind a healthy democratic system, multi-party, based on universal male suffrage, and a healthy constitutional system. They introduced secular nationalism, which is something extremely important and which the nation survived on for several years after the French. They introduced an excellent education system for those times. They gave education to women, they upgraded universities, every single beautiful building you have in Syria today was either constructed by the Ottomans or the French.

Now their bad impact was naturally, they were a colonising force. Were they brutal in suppressing demonstrations? Of course. Did they arrest people? Of course. Did they kill people? Naturally. They had the army that roamed the streets of Damascus from Senegal. Their mention is enough to bring down shivers on the spine of any elderly Syrian, even until today. How violent was the resistance? The French came in 1920 and there was one grand battle in Maysalun which is on the road between Damascus and Beirut. During that battle, the Syrian army was crushed, and this had a very strong impact on the Syrians. So basically in Damascus you did not have any resistance right after the French came. You had a revolt in Aleppo, you had a revolt in the so-called Alawhat Mountain which is on the coast of Latakia. You had a revolt in the mid-west in a place called Talkalakh, but in Damascus the population was submissive for the first couple of years. In 1925 there were the first co-ordinated armed uprising against the French. It lasted until 1927 and then there were sporadic attacks, sporadic demonstrations, sporadic movements which lasted until '46. There was no united military command or uprising against the French from 1927.

Annabelle Quince: At the end of World War II the Syrian pressure for independence increased. The French responded by bombing Damascus.

Sami Moubayed:The official Syrian line of this is the revolt of the masses and the will of the Syrian people is what led to the French exodus, which is what we'd love to believe. Certainly in contributed, but what actually made General de Gaulle take that final decision to begin moving out was British pressure. After the bombing of Damascus on May 29th, 1945, Prime Minister Churchill personally intervened in the crisis and asked the French to start leaving. So if it were not for the British the French would not have left then, they would have eventually departed, I mean it was very difficult to hold on to their Middle East and North African colonies.

Annabelle Quince: Independence came in 1946 but the first few years were marred by social and political chaos. Raymond Hinnebusch, Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrew's, and the author of Syria: Revolution from Above, argues that this political chaos was due to the loss of the idea of Greater Syria, and to a war with Israel.

Raymond Hinnebusch:Part of the problem I think would have to be the way the country was born, so to speak. It was born without the enthusiastic loyalty of its people, who yearned for identity with some much larger entities they saw the Syrian state that had been granted independence as an artificial entity. So any politician that was governing such an entity, started with a legitimacy deficit, it was a liability built in, if you will.

It did not help that one of the first crises that this new State faced was the war in Palestine, what the Israelis called a War of Independence, but which the Arabs called a disaster, when Israel was established at the expense of the Palestinian population. Syria, as well as the other Arab states, were involved in trying to protect the Palestinians or stave this off, but they failed. And so the ruling elite lost whatever precarious nationalist legitimacy they had attained in the winning of independence. That de-legitimised them to a great extent and it energised the army to begin to get involved in politics.

Annabelle Quince: In the six years following the 1948 war, Syria was rocked by a series of military coups. Then in 1954 just as a national government was restored in Syria, the Middle East was again thrown into turmoil, this time by the Suez crisis.

Newsreader:In retrospect, it couldn't have happened at a better time for Nasser.

Newsreader:Suddenly he seemed unrivalled as the leader of Arab opinion in Egypt and in the rest of the Arab world.

Annabelle Quince: In 1958 with Egyptian President Nasser at the height of his political power and Arab nationalism sweeping the Middle East, Syria approached Egypt with the idea of merging the two countries into one Arab nation, the United Arab Republic.

Raymond Hinnebusch:It has to be almost unique in history that a political elite that achieved sovereignty gives it up. But I think that was a symptom of the lack of identification with the Syrian state, that the masses of Syrians, as well as their political elite, would be willing to give up their independence in the name of an ideal. The idea of course was nationalism, Abdel Nasser in Egypt was seen as the champion of Arab nationalism. There were of course other reasons why the Syrian elite opted to join in the United Arab Republic with Egypt; one other reason was that they found it almost impossible to govern the country. They were I suppose looking to Nasser to somehow save them. It didn't work of course, the UAR turned into Egyptian domination at least as seen from the Syrian point of view.

Annabelle Quince: Following a military coup in September 1961, Syria seceded from the UAR and the Syrian Arab Republic was re-established. In March 1963, following yet another coup, the Ba'ath Arab Socialist party came to power. They dissolved the Parliament and introduced a one-party regime. Then in 1967 Syria found itself embroiled in the Six Day War with Israel.

Archives: Meanwhile the Syrians continue to shell without let-up the Israeli border villages. On 9th June the Israeli forces counter-attacked. The Syrian garrison town of Konaitra is taken and the line established which removes all danger of shelling from the Israeli border villages.

Raymond Hinnebusch:The next watershed event in shaping the tangent Syria has taken, has to be the '67 war, which had two consequences. In some ways contrary ones. The first was that the conflict with Israel now had been in a way institutionalised in the sense that it was no longer just a question of Syria championing the Palestinians, now Syrian territory, the Golan Heights, had been conquered, and from that time on, it has been the fixed obsession of successive Syrian governments to recover the Golan. So Syria's locked in, in a way perhaps that it wasn't before the conflict with Israel. But the other outcome of the defeat is that it brings on the fact that however Syrians may reject the legitimacy of Israel, there's nothing they can do about its existence. They've got to come to terms with it. The realist leader that takes power from within the Ba'ath Hafiz Al-Asad in 1970 makes it very clear that the old notion that somehow the creation of Israel could be undone is just off the agenda. The new mission for his government, it will be the recovery of the Golan, and after 1970 you get 30 years essentially of the Syrians involved in war or preparing for war with Israel over the Golan, or engaged in on and off peace processes, in which they try to use a diplomatic process to recover the Golan. And today, this is still an unresolved issue, and I don't think any Syrian government can rest unless it's seen as at least not giving up on this mission of recovering the Golan.

Annabelle Quince: In 1970 Hafiz a-Asad who had been Defence Minister during the '67 War, came to power. President Asad ruled Syria for 30 years and established the longest period of political stability the country had ever seen.

Sami Moubayed:President Asad was one of the most pragmatic and far-sighted politicians one would encounter. Whether we agree with his policies or not, we cannot but acknowledge that. Nixon came here in 1974 during the height of his Watergate scandal, and he wrote in his memoirs that this man (in reference to President Asad) has elements of genius in him, if he manages to survive, because his country is famed for its coups and counter-coups. When he came to power, he began to take a series of foreign relations policies which at first were seen unacceptable or wrong or misguided by the populace, which after a time proved to be in Syria's best interest. One his decision in 1979 to support the Iranian Revolution, the other is the decision in 1980 to not side with Iraq against Iran. The third is the decision in 1976 to enter Lebanon, invade Lebanon to put an end to the civil war. The Syrians, let's not forget, they went in on the side of the Christians at first, to fight the Palestinians, which was a taboo in Syria, it caused an uproar back then. Then came 1991, the decision to side with the Americans to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein, a fellow Arab, and a Ba'athist and a secular. So all of these decisions with time created a feeling in Syria that the President knows best when it comes to foreign affairs. This is his strongest legacy.

From 1990 onwards, Syria became a regional superpower, regional. Although at the end of the day Syria does not have the numerical superiority or the political weight of Egypt, nor does it have the money of Saudi Arabia, nor does it have the oil of Kuwait, I mean it only has its strategic position bordering Lebanon, bordering Israel, bordering Iraq. So he transformed Syria into a regional superpower. Good, it makes you proud being a Syrian by at the end of the day it somewhat brings you away from reality. Because when you feel that you're a superpower, you start acting like a superpower, when you're not really a superpower. Domestically, President Asad brought stability. For 30 years you had no coups, you had a strong feeling of security. Now many people would counter-argue that saying that this was at the expense of politics. Well true, but this argument is again being counterbalanced today when you look at Iraq. When people are saying We'd rather have stability than any of the political liberties that have been given to us by the Americans since 2003.

Najib Ghadbian: Stability was brought into Syria by I would say as the high cost in terms of human rights, in terms of political repression and in terms of even economic suffering. For Asad, anyone who opposed him was working explicitly or implicitly with the colonial target, the Zionists, with the US against all the great things that his regime stood for.

Archives: The Syrians and their Lebanese allies have for long been calling for a balanced regime which would give all the main communities and factions their fair share of power.

Raymond Hinnebusch:Why they went into Lebanon I think was initially a matter of security. As the Syrians see it, Lebanon is their vulnerable Western flank. When there was conflict in Lebanon, civil war, radical Palestinians, there was I think in Damascus the fear that the Israelis would use this to come into Lebanon, and perhaps even to strike at them.

Sami Moubayed:Now by 1976 Nixon had left the White House, there was President Ford, the man in control of things was Henry Kissinger, Henry Kissinger sent the message to the Syrians through Ambassador Richard Murphy saying that Lebanon is in chaos, if you don't enter Israel will. So his decision to enter in Lebanon in 1976 was basically created out of several factors. One was support by the US, two was a conviction that Lebanon, this chaos can spill over into Syria, if it's not controlled. Third is a Lebanon controlled by Palestinians, by Arafat, was something very dangerous. The Syrians did not want that. So they entered to crush the PLO of Arafat. Now loyalties changed and objectives changed pretty soon, when the Phalange Party opened contacts with the Israelis, and the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 1982 to expel both the Syrians and the Palestinians. The Syrians were forced to change their objectives, and to concentrate on fighting the Israelis. But basically that initial decision in 1976 was for those reasons. And once you are there, you can't turn around and leave. The Syrians they were dragged from one conflict into another.

Raymond Hinnebusch:Why did they not leave? Again I think it's a combination of factors. One would be that they saw Lebanon as a card in the great game of diplomacy over a final settlement with Israel in the peace process. As long as they were the power broker in Lebanon, they could prevent Lebanon from entering a separate peace with Israel that would undermine Syria's hand, so they were strategic, and foreign policy motivations for staying there. Having said that, it does appear also that people in the regime, and one has to say on the Lebanese side too, acquired a stake in Syria's presence, in the intimate intertwining of the two counties that was taking place.

Newsreader:The Bush Administration is also very heartened by the way Syria has moved to prevent terrorist acts against US and allied interests in the run-up to and during the Gulf War.

Annabelle Quince: In the period of co-operation that followed the first Gulf War, President Clinton sponsored a series of Peace Talks between Syria and Israel, at which Syria attempted to regain the Golan via diplomacy. But when the negotiations failed and the Republicans regained the White House in 2000, Syria found itself out in the cold.

Raymond Hinnebusch:The failure of the peace process was taken badly in Washington. Relations with Syria were important because of the belief that they would deliver the peace process and that had failed. But I think the decisive thing was the people that were brought to power around Bush, the infamous neocons who famously and before they came into power, had advocated confronting Syria.

Newsreader:General Tommy Franks, heading the coalition in Iraq, says his troops are still coming across resistance.

General Tommy Franks: We're seeing a number of Syrians. These are mercenaries, I mean we've seen the recruiting pamphlets.

President George W. Bush: Syria just needs to co-operate with us. I made that clear on Friday, I will if need be, reiterate it today.

Sami Moubayed: Syria bluntly said no to this war. He said that Iraq was going to be a catastrophe, that has proven correct, we said that Iraq is going to explode its sectarian violence, the Americans will not be able to control it, although that has proven to be correct. Now Syria stands in 2003, enraged the Bush Administration, and Syria has been paying the price for that stance on refusing to support the war. And on the contrary, what the Americans claim is supporting the insurgency which is not very true. When the war ended, there was an international chorus headed by President Bush, Secretary of State Powell and Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, saying that the Syrians were supporting the insurgency. The Syrians were not controlling the border. The Syrians were harbouring former henchmen of the former regime, in Damascus. These arguments have faded. You just don't hear them in the media any more. Is it because Syria has co-operated? Part of it is Yes. But part of it because they were not true. They were used as the scapegoats early on in the war by the Americans and the Iraqis to justify the rising degree of chaos.

Now there has been a somewhat acceptance internationally that the only way to bring peace to Iraq is through Syria and through Iran. Syria can control the Sunni streak, the Sunni insurgency, and Iraq can control the Shi'ite streak, the Shi'ite insurgency.

The Americans will not talk to the Iranians, it's simply too embarrassing. They believe they can do that through the Syrians. So now there's I mean you had Tony Blair's envoy last October, he came to Syria, he asked the Syrians to co-operate on Iraq, you had the Syrians sending their Minister for Foreign Affairs to the re-establishment of diplomatic ties with Baghdad. Can the Syrians end this insurgency? They can minimise damage. The Director of the CIA, he said that the al-Qa'eda insurgents are no more than 3.5% of the 14,000 strong insurgents. The rest of the fighters, the Sunni tribes, and the Sunni notables, were in the low tens of thousands, meaning that the bulk of the insurgency is not Sunny, therefore the amount of influence that the Syrians can exert is not very big. The rest of the influence is the doing of the Iran Can the Americans Iran That's a different issue.

Annabelle Quince: If Syria is to play a role in Iraq or any other Middle East peace deal, clearly from the Syrian perspective, the Golan will have to be on the table.

Thanks as always to sound engineer John Jacobs, and to Sabrina Lipovic from ABC Archives. I'm Annabelle Quince.

Guests

Dr. Najib Ghadbian

Assistant Professor of Political Science and Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas